Saturday, October 06, 2007

Officials Frustrated As Throng Stakes Out Front Of Home, Many in White Face and Mime Costumes, Waiting

Going on two-weeks after Marcel Marceau's death, huge throngs of fans, from all over France, and as far away as Japan and New Zealand, have blocked the Marceau family, and the Paris Coroner's office, from taking the body, believing the acclaimed master mime "is just working on a new routine".

The fans and supporters have taken to working in shifts, with food and supplies curried in for those keeping vigil.

"I believe," said one fan, in broken English, "that he is protesting war ... It has been a very powerful statement."

French officials are frustrated, as the crowd continues to grow, causing additional problems of traffic, and thousands of mimes, some accomplished and talented, others still working on their craft, annoying neighbors and local businesses.

Newly-elected French President Nicholas Sarkozy has made one appearance (however, his wife snubbed the mimes), appealing to the massive crowd, attempting to convince them that Marceau has, indeed, passed away, and that they should all leave.

"Marceau was credited with single-handedly reviving the art of mime after World War II, after two decades of being eclipsed by the silent movie.

Marceau was inspired to become a mime by the great Hollywood actors of the silent era such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon.

His Compagnie Marcel Marceau was the only mime troupe in the world in the 1950s and 1960s - it enjoyed as much acclaim abroad as at home."

Sources tell The Garlic that contingency plans are being made, with, possibly, a mime made up to look like Marceau, will come to the window, thank the crowd and encourage them all to go home.

As one local official griped, "I don't know why they didn’t do that on the first day ... We could have avoided all of this."

There are also rumors that French officials are negotiating with those keeping vigil, on conducing a "mime funeral", however it is not clear if that would be acted out in mime, or, if a real burial will occur. Reports have surfaced on other tensions in the talks, such as will talking be allowed at the service and which color clothing should the mourners wear - black or white?.

David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.

Over the previous eight months, a discredited president had effectively abdicated responsibility for managing the war. “I trust David Petraeus” became George W. Bush’s mantra, suggesting an astonishing level of presidential deference.

Petraeus has chosen a middle course, carefully crafted to cause the least amount of consternation among various Washington constituencies he is eager to accommodate. This is the politics of give and take, of horse trading, of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, it is the politics of avoidance.

The general’s relationships with official Washington remain intact. Yet he has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly."

"I don't know what the Iraqi's problems are," Shwe was overheard saying, following the announcement, "We certainly don't mind if these Blackwater soldiers take out a few civilians... In fact, I am expecting such results."

Led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for much of the past 12-years, Burmese citizens have called on the military junta to step down, following the 1990 election, the first in nearly 30-years, that elevated the pro-democracy party of Suu Kyi to a majority position, but then was annulled by the military rulers.

When asked about Blackwater now working for Burma, Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend referred questions about Blackwater to the State Department, but added "I didn't know there was a Burma before there was a Myanmar."

"These guys," chortled the rotund, drug-taking Limbaugh, "shave their heads, put on orange clothes and start prancing around and we're all supposed to think this is something sacrosanct ... Hogwash! ... Seeing some of the news footage on this, I think I recognize some of these phony monks ... They hit me up at the airport recently, asking for money, or if I wanted to take a free personality test ... Yeah, right ... I got a personality test for them ..."

When a caller later in the hour chastised Limbaugh for making fun of the Burmese Monks, Limbaugh berated the caller, saying he was only speaking about one, particular phony monk.

So many have written, thanking The Garlic for enlightening them, not making feel like their sitting in the corner, wearing a dunce cap, while attending a baseball playoff party.

They've had no need to jump up and go to The Google, to look up what "He'll be taking in this situation" or trying to find the "Utility Field" that the "Utilityfielder" plays at. "He's working the count" will no longer be mystery.

It is from J. Cofer Black, former CIA veteran and now vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly describing to President Bush the outcome of invading Afghanistan after September 11th, from one of a trio of articles in Salon today.

Just think, they could have replaced the iconic "Uncle Sam Wants You" posters, with much more graphic, horrific depictions, of dead terrorists lying in the desert, a close-up of one (so you can see the flies walking across their eyeballs), and more littered in the distance.

A wave of Army recruiters, sitting in the living rooms across Nowheresville, USA, going through their pitch, about the benefits, the call-to-duty, serving your country, and building up to the chest-thumping, lump-in-the-throat clincher, how you, little John Doe recruit, will see the blazing day of righteous victory when you watch the flies walking across their eyeballs (Far-Fetched? It seems quite clear The Commander Guy bought it).

Perhaps the CIA could have had one of their deep-cover, front companies put out a video game, a war video game, where, for all the terrorists you kill, you earn the flies that you will gleefully (and, if you have Neocon tendencies, with hard-on) place on their eyeballs (which the above-referenced Army Recruiter gives a copy to the little John Doe recruits, as a "gift")

Instead of telling us to "go shopping" The Commander Guy could have rallied the country around the collection of flies.

"No flies on his head" would become a jingoistic talking point, rather then a derisive put-down.

The Republicans could have, instead of taunting their counterparts in Congress with "Defeatocrats" and "Cut and Run", could have, with veins popping on their foreheads, voices coursed from passion, saying the Democrats want to "protect the flies" ... "Fly Appeasers" and the like.

Who knows the impact this would have had, if the military dropped leaflets, that new "Flies-Walking-Across-Eyeballs" recruiting poster sketch, that maybe the insurgents, terrorists, Al Qaeda in Iraq, even those infamous "dead-enders" would have paled at such a thought and immediately thrown down their arms ... Heck, they may even would have been at the head-of-the-list on planning the "Liberation Parades" throughout Baghdad.

UPDATED: Sy Hersh joined CNN’s Late Edition and discussed his new article out in the NewYorker: “Shifting Targets,” which says that the WH has a new talking point which it will sell attacking Iran and as usual, our media will lap it up. The CIA has created an Iran Study Group with dozens of new members with the goal of launching a strike against Iran, including ground forces. Bush feels that using the nuclear threat as the reason to bomb Iran has failed miserably, so they switched talking points and are going to say they are defending themselves against Iranian meddling in Iraq. We told you so….

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Well, if I want to use a Friedman Unit, I think I can safely say that The New York Times will, over the next year, to six-months, continue to carry the horseshit that Thomas Friedman promulgates in the Grey Lady's pages.

He has another doozy today, leaving behind The Commander's Guy gem advice that we should go shopping, Friedman is ringing the clarion bell for businessmen, particularly from Europe, to fly more ... Indulge in more air travel to the United States so we, as a nation, can move from the day of 9-11, to the day of 9-12.

"In explaining the concept of the 9/12 candidate as if it is so complex only he can demystify it , Friedman begins by asking: What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 – mine included – has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

Yours included, Tom? Say it ain't so! Friedman knows nothing of jokes but he sure can make you gag with crap like his ham-handed installation of the "mine included" escape hatch. (I mean after six years of being wrong, the guy takes absolute minimal responsibility by sticking two words between two hyphens. Now there's some tough self-love!)"

But back in 1957, Louis Armstrong made news, in of all places, Grand Forks, North Dakota, with the aid of a young journalism student.

Armstrong's appearance in Grand Forks came two-weeks after the Little Rock Nine were banned from attending Central High School.

Journalism student Larry Lubenow was sent over to get an interview, if he could and after getting access to Armstrong, Lubenow was in for the scoop of his life;

"But soon he brought up Little Rock, and he could not believe what he heard. “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” a furious Mr. Armstrong told him. President Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced,” and had “no guts.” For Governor Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print. The two settled on something safer: “uneducated plow boy.” The euphemism, Mr. Lubenow says, was far more his than Mr. Armstrong’s."

His editors didn't believe him, so Lubenow went back to see if he could get the verification they sought.

"Then Mr. Lubenow showed Mr. Armstrong what he’d written. “Don’t take nothing out of that story,” Mr. Armstrong declared. “That’s just what I said, and still say.” He then wrote “solid” on the bottom of the yellow copy paper, and signed his name."

And the rest is history, with Armstrong contacting President Eisenhower;

"But it didn’t really matter. On Sept. 24, President Eisenhower sent 1,200 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne into Little Rock, and the next day soldiers escorted the nine students into Central High School. Mr. Armstrong exulted. “If you decide to walk into the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy,” he wired the president. “God bless you.”

Questioning that carried the tone of "You don't belong here" and "Who do you think you are, running for President."

RUSSERT: I wanted to ask Senator Gravel—you talked about running for president of the United States. In 1980, your condo business went bankrupt.

GRAVEL: Correct.

RUSSERT: In 2004, you filed for personal bankruptcy...

GRAVEL: Correct.

RUSSERT: ... leaving $85,000 in credit bills unpaid.

RUSSERT: How can someone who did not take care of his business, could not manage his own personal finances, say that he is capable of managing the country?

GRAVEL: Well, first off, if you want to make a judgment of who can be the greediest people in the world when they get to public office, you can just look at the people up here. Many of them have done very, very well in public office.

I left the Senate no better than when I went in. Now, you say the condo business. I will tell you, Donald Trump has been bankrupt 100 times. So I went bankrupt once in business. And the other—who did I bankrupt? I stuck the credit card companies with $90,000 worth of bills and they deserved it because I used the money...

(LAUGHTER)

They deserved it—and I used the money to finance the empowerment of the American people with a national initiative, so you can make the laws.

Now, Tim, let me just point one thing out. You were asking about special interests.

RUSSERT: You’ve made your point.

GRAVEL: Well, I wanted to make a better point.

(LAUGHTER)

RUSSERT: We’ll leave it at that, because I’ve got to give everyone a chance.

He then turned to Kucinich, with the same look and a glint of "Gotcha" in his eyes.

Fortunately, Kucinch didn't play it for laughs, volleying back and shoving Russert's bullshit back down his throat;

RUSSERT: Congressman Kucinich, when you were mayor of Cleveland, you let Cleveland go into bankruptcy, the first time that happened since the Depression. The voters of Cleveland rewarded you by throwing you out of office and electing a Republican mayor of Cleveland.

How can you claim that you have the ability to manage the United States of America when you let Cleveland go bankrupt?

KUCINICH: You know, Tim, that was NBC’s story. Now I want the people to know what the real story was.

I took a stand on behalf of the people of Cleveland to save a municipal electric system. The banks and the utilities in Cleveland, the private utilities, were trying to force me to sell that system.

And so on December 15th, 1978, I told the head of the biggest bank, when he told me I had to sell the system in order to get the city’s credit renewed, that I wasn’t going to do it because, you know, I remember where I came from. I remembered my parents counting pennies to pay the utility bills in one of the many apartments we lived in.

And so I know why I went into public office. I went in to stand up for the people. And the people in Cleveland in 1994 asked me to come back to public life because at that point they expanded a municipal electric system that the banks demanded that I sell.

KUCINICH: And I showed the ability to stand up for the people.

You know, my campaign in ‘94 was “Because he was right.” And people put me in the Ohio Senate for that reason. ‘96, it was “Light up Congress,” as a symbol of saving the municipal electric system. And this year, it’s going to be “Light up America,” because I’m going to challenge those interest groups.

I put my job on the line. How many people would be willing to put their job on the line in the face of pressure from banks and utilities?

As this story gets told, people will want me to be their next president, because they’ll see in me not only the ability to take a stand, but the ability to live with integrity.

Fix Iraq

About Me

J. Thomas Duffy created and lauched 'The Garlic in 2005.
Mr. Duffy is an accomplished writer, with experience as a newspaper reporter, radio writer, comedy and stand-up writer, the author of three children's books (unpublished, so far) and, and, through a good number of his writing experience, actually received payment for it.
Mr. Duffy is also a Contributing Editor on the blog, 'The Reaction' and a Contributing Writer to the blog 'The Moderate Voice.
In his spare time, Mr. Duffy likes to promulgate that is actually the dog salivating that caused Pavlov to ring the bell.